Compiling a list of psychotropic mushrooms that don’t contain psilocybin
Ben Taylor (he/him) // Crew Writer
Alex Baidanuta (she/her) // Visuals
These days, magic mushrooms are relatively easy to purchase for your enjoyment in Vancouver. Dispensaries have been popping up all over Vancouver like vape stores and falafel places. Each mushroom dispo typically has a wide variety of strains; most are, in fact, the same species of mushroom. For instance, the commonly known strains Penis Envy and Golden Teachers both belong to the species Psilocybe cubensis. Marshall Archibald—friend of the Courier, budding mycologist and creator of the Marshall Mushroom Hunter series located on YouTube—equates this to different types of apples: “When you go to the store, you can buy Granny Smiths or Gala, or Red Delicious, but they’re all the same. It’s just different cultivars people have bred.”
Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms contain psilocybin, the most popular and widely available psychotropic compound around. Marshall has been compiling a list detailing as many different types of psychotropic mushrooms as he can, and recently he blessed me with the opportunity to dive into the list with him.
There are thousands of mushrooms that contain psilocybin, but the second most known psychedelic mushrooms are Amanita’s. If you were to close your eyes and picture a mushroom, you’re probably thinking of an Amanita. These guys are the red toadstools with white dots–the Mario mushrooms. They are also psychotropic, but in a different way from the psilocybin mushrooms.
Amanita muscaria (commonly known as the fly agaric or fly amanita) contains muscimol and ibotenic acid which according to Marshall are “magic in their own way.” The effects of the chemicals of Amanita muscaria are much more sedative than their psilocybin counterparts, with some claiming the effects are similar to alcohol. Despite psilocybe mushrooms being much more popular and widely consumed by those seeking a psychedelic experience, the Amanita remains a symbol of psychedelia in art and literature. Disney movies from back in the day leaned heavily on the Amanita symbolism—think Fantasia (1940) or Alice in Wonderland (1951)—which makes me wonder: What was Ol’ Walt munching on when he came up with those?
Another interesting fungi is known as Cordyceps. Marshall describes these as an “entomopathogenic, or bug eating fungus. They will infect and take over insects and then grow out of them, (fun fact, these guys inspired the Last of Us zombies).” They’ve been eaten medicinally for centuries in Asia, recently gaining popularity in North America. Cordyceps contain the compound Cordycepin, which isn’t known to be psychoactive. However, Marshall has heard rumblings of its use at the Telluride mushroom festival in Colorado. “At the festival, there’s all sorts of crazy mushroom things happening,” he says, “And, one of the things happening was people extracting and purifying the Cordyceps, and then dabbing the Cordyceps extract, and apparently getting pretty high off of it.” He has never tried it himself so he cannot attest to it. Leave it to Coloradans to figure out how to dab a fucking mushroom. “It’s pretty cooked,” according to Marshall.
Pochonia chlamydosporia is a fungus that eats nematodes. Marshall couldn’t tell me much about this mushroom, other than the fact that it supposedly could contain ketamine. Marshall gave me a rundown on what he thinks could’ve happened here: “When you’re chemically testing a microfungi, something that lives its entire life cycle as a microscopic organism, the tests are extremely sensitive,” he explains, “So, let’s say you’re a scientist, and the night before the test you take some ketamine, and get some under your fingernail or something, and you go in and do this test, it’s very likely that one tiny granule of ketamine could contaminate it.”
What makes it interesting is that despite reports of ketamine being found in various fungi, plants or animals, ketamine does not exist anywhere in nature–it’s a totally synthetic chemical. Marshall explains that “given the structure of the chemical itself, it’s extremely unlikely that it ever would be produced naturally.” It would be groundbreaking if proven to be true, but it could also be the case that the scientist self-reported themself as a ketamine enthusiast. “You wouldn’t want to publish a report saying this mushroom contains ketamine only to realize, ‘oh shit, I contain ketamine.’”
The full list of mushrooms Marshall has compiled is too extensive for me to go into full detail here, but I’ll leave some scientific names for those curious enough to research more themselves; Rhodocollybia maculata, Tuber melanosporum, Boletus manicus, Bioreactor yeast (specifically, spoken about in this Stanford article hyperlinked on capilanocourier.com), Ergot alkaloids, Lanmaoa asiatica and Massaspora cicadina.
There is likely a world of other species with entirely different psychotropic chemicals than the ones I’ve mentioned above and mycologists like Marshall seek to discover and identify as many of them as possible. However, with limited resources available, it may be a long time before an official, extensive list of psychoactive mushrooms is ever published. Until then, psilocybin will most likely remain the chemical of choice for recreational mushroom use; except in Colorado . . . 😉